Photometric search for variable stars in young open cluster Berkeley 59

We present time-series photometry of stars located in the extremely young open cluster Berkeley 59. Using the 1.04 m telescope at ARIES, Nainital, we have identified 42 variables in a field of 13'x13' around the cluster. The probable members of the cluster are identified using (V, V-I) colour-magnitude diagram and (J-H, H-K) colour-colour diagram. Thirty one variables are found to be pre-main sequence stars associated with the cluster. The ages and masses of pre-main sequence stars are derived from colour-magnitude diagram by fitting theoretical models to the observed data points. The ages of the majority of the probable pre-main sequence variable candidates range from 1 to 5 Myrs. The masses of these pre-main sequence variable stars are found to be in the range of ~0.3 to ~3.5 Msun and these could be T Tauri stars. The present statistics reveal that about 90% T Tauri stars have periods < 15 days. The classical T Tauri stars are found to have larger amplitude in comparison to the weak line T Tauri stars. There is an indication that the amplitude decreases with increase of the mass, which could be due to the dispersal of disk of relatively massive stars.